Letting standards slip?

Today is my last day for work for nearly 2 weeks, Hoorrayyy!!
But what's also good about today is that it's a dress down day, so as soon as it hits 4pm and the 0.00000009 tenths of a second later when my foot crosses the threshold of the door, I will be on holiday.... I think I might be having some Champagne!!!!!

Packing

Ahh I am giggling my butt off, This is Tiddles, the friend MyUtopia is visiting in The Netherlands and I am just popping in to let you know, some of you guys are just silly!
When one goes on vacation you know there are a few things you take with you, tooth brush, comb, clean socks and under pants (you know what your mum says about having clean underpants on!)
So there are some things you just have to take with you, so i laughed myself silly when MyUtopia started freaking out the other day when he was writing a list of things to pack I heard something like AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
**chuckles** MyUtopia just remembered he does not own a suitcase!
Yeah Ut you need something to pack your clothing and toothbrush in! lol

Nudge nudge, click click, wink wink, grin grin..... know what I mean!

Probably not, well that post about Holland and not yet having a camera reminded me of yesterday in the part. We're in autumn but despite that the weather's been pretty good, fairly warm excpet in the evenings as the days are getting shorter and plenty of sunshine and not much in the way of rain. In the park I like to visit there's a large rock garden full of trees and lots of different oplants, but they all seem to be in a state of flux. Some look ready for winter and have started to change but only a little, others that are more autumn blooming are starting to come out and some that should be showing signs of autumn still look like they have done all summer. So there's a huge mixter of light browns with dark deep greens everywhere and still lots of flowers in bloom. Yesterday there were lots of families their too so I stopped off for Coffee and cake and to read my paper.

After about 30 minutes I was all done, the coffee and cake gone within 5 minutes of sitting down to have them under an acer tree. I should warn you... I'm a nutter magnet, if your reading this blog you probably fall into one of two categories, (a) You're an entrecard dropper, so thanks for dropping by or (b) you're a nutter, in which case welcome, take a seat next to the others.

So I tidy the table, get the plate, fork and coffee mug ready to take back inside when someone calls to me... "hey mate!.... can you spare any loose change?"... at this point I realised teh days was going too well... I replied "no... sorry". OK, I'm Scottish and we have a reputation for being a little tight... in fact I have mentioned to a friend on several occasions that copper wire was invented by to scots fighting over a penny, also that if a scotsman dropped 50p it would hit him on the back of his head as he bent to pick it up. In this case, I just dont give money to homeless people, not beause I'm uncharitable, but over hear I know there are places they can get food and get help.

So anyway, I start to fold my paper again and not quite finished with me yet he replies "Finished with your paper?....", no, I said, it happens I was about to head home and finish it their, "seen the Grand Prix?"..... an unusual tactic that nearly caught me off guard and must have been some sort of ploy to cuk me into further conversation, sorry but I had things to do that day, so I told the truth much to my embaressment and to his disbelief, "No, I haven't seen the Grand Prix as I haven't got a TV"... I was totally polite... but he immediately looked away in disgust as if I'd just had a dump in his breakfast, like I'd just told a blatant lie.

Ah well the rest of the day went well anyway.

Stroopenkoeken Heaven here I come

Finally I have booked a flight to Holland, I've not had much of a break this year or a chance to get way so I'm really looking forward to this. I haven't been outside the UK much in a while and I've never been to Holland and to be honest anytime anyone has ever mentioned Holland I've imagined it's all like Amsterdam. Amsterdam is still not a bad place to visit but from the pictures a friend has sent me there's a lot more to it that I know I'm going to love. We're also going to the Efteling which I'm told is amazing so I'm looking forward to that too.
If I can get a Camera sorted out between now and when I leave then hopefully I will have some pictures to put on this blog.

If you never hear from me again it's either because I've decided not to come back or I've overdosed on these bad boys.

Weekend already!!!!!!!!

Finally booked a bit of time off and got loads of stuff sorted.
There's a food and drink festical on in Manchester so I will definetly being going to that..... and not driving as I wont to taste lots and lots of wine.
Then get some lovely cheeses, especially Pecarino as I love that on scrambled eggs, then I will just take it easy, get some stuff sorted around the house and things. As for the rest of it, I might see if I can get a last minutes deal somewhere, leave Saturday and come back on Sunday or Monday. Trying to save money so wont be doing anything for more than a couple of nights tops.

Just as I was coming home MGMT came on the radio so that's got me in the mood for relaxing and enjoying myself.

MGMT - Electric Feel
by wonderful-life1989

Bedtime

Right, I've been burning the candle at both ends for a while now so I'm going to start getting early nights... I want to remember what it feels like to wake up feeling refreshed and nott bleary eyed and hung over when I wasn't even out drinking.

gifts!

I have a friend who makes amazing jewellery but she is a little lazy at the moment, I do not mean with the making of her necklaces and things but I mean the updating from her website.
Here is my plan, I am going to get on her back about updating her website and then I will show you some of the amazing stuff she makes.
It is coming close to Christmas so I think she should get her butt into gear, though the chances are high I will want to buy a lot of her things as I have sisters to buy for and lets not forget mum!

Loose end?

I have some time on my hands but there's nothing I find worse than being stuck at a lloose end..... I mean I have lots of holiday time to take and I want to take it... I just don't want to be sat at home..... Ok there are some lovely parks near me but there are only so many walks you can go for.

Anyway, I am planning on a trip to visit a friend in The Netherlands, but I'm a bit sacred, it's silly but I seam to have gotten less adventurous.....

Years ago, before the internet, I wanted to go and see a friend who was getting married in France, she invited me to the wedding, out of curtosey as a friend, but as I knew no french and I didn't have a job she didn't think I would make it. It was all in a beautiful french village called Rogne where she grew up and I remember the trouble I went to booking all the transport and looking for guide books in the library..., it all seemed like a big adventure and I really want to do something like that again. So This trip to The Netherlands I think I need to do soon, I want to feel independent again and not so petrified.

Weekend is here

Yep, weekend is here and time to get off the treadmill....... except I said I'd work tomorrow :(

Why do I do this to myself

Definetly when I get paid all this overtime I am having a bit of me time

Where's my weekend?

I really need to sort out something called Work,Life Balance. It's Sunday and I spent the whole of Saturday from 9:00am till 2:00am in work, I did manage to nip out for a bite, but what the heel am I thinking, I have 6 weeks holiday to take and only 4 months to do it in......
Don't get me wrong, don't pity me, it all helps towards Christmas and means that I will have some money to spend when I do take time off. Nothing worse than being on holiday with zero cash in your pocket, after all you do work and earn money, you don't do it to just pay bills, you do it to improve your quality of life.

Right off to hit the poker tables now.

Weekend!

It is just about the weekend and I intend to be putting my feet up, there is one slight problem with that idea and it has to do with me being at work all weekend. I am sure my boss might not like it with my feet on the desk, there is a solution to this problem, Stop giving me so many over hours and so few days off!
So lets see what it brings, I am just sick of being a hamster in a cage!

This deserves an award.

Someone once said "It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt" and the number of times I go to meetings in work and I am constantly reminded of this pearl of wisdom from even the most educated and sometimes most wordly of people makes me laugh. So true is it everyday I even see examples of it in real life. Lets take one very recent example..... umm... where to start.... I know... how about Mister Kanye West?.....





I just don't understand it... I mean what went wrong... he seemed so happy going in, looked like he was having a good time, he even had the delightful company too... here he is with his delightful company..

























and here he is again still holding onto his delightful company















Although by my reckoning his delightful company has deminished somewhat from the first photograph, infact I'd say atleast half the bottle is now gone.

We need a special award for exactly this kind of thing, were people make fools of themselves publicly, a bit like the Darwin Awards but for non fatal stupidity, a sort of Non-Postumous Darwin award.

Slippery Slope

Yup... proof positive if proof were needed, I went shopping on sunday and 3 of the shops I visited all had sections specifically for Christmas stuff..... there's no escaping it... Luckily I always keep a few £££ spare to get loads of stuff in the January Sales.... so hopefully this year will be less hectic......

Fingers crossed

How Long!!!!!

Today is the 13th of September and as usual I wake up to watch the news and have a cup of coffee while I decide how to spend my Sunday. Not to watch the cartoons... no , never....suddenly I notice a disturbing pattern, there seems to be more toy commercials than usual.... not that I usually watch the cartoons... but yep more and more of them I'd even say there were more commercials than programs.... then it dawns on me...... 15 weeks till Christmas..... Thank god I don't have kids...... don't pretend you haven't been warned, this is your 3 minute warning.....

You get how many channels!!!!!???

Growing up I always wondered why the television had channels 1 to 10.... 1 to 10 when there were only 3 Television channels, BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. Of course my dad ruled the TV, he decided what we watched and most of the time it was either something on ITV or the news the later much to my brothers frustration..... It seemed to be that we were either watching the news or a soap opera or a John Wayne film or some western, he did like Clint Eastwood too so wasn't too bad. I watche "The Enforcer" last night and it was full of classic Clint quotes "CALLAHAN: Well what'd you want me to do? Yell "trick or treat" at them?".

Anyway, along came the inspirationally named "Channel Four" (Can't imagine how much they paid the marketting team to come up with that name), which to start off with, was rubbish, however my brother uncharachteristically seemed to like some of the ... err.... Art programmes.... hmmm.... then came Channel 5 , another class example of clever PR and shortly digital TV and a huge array of more free to view channels. OK there were paid for cable channels and satelite channels in the intervening years, but not free.....

With all these channels now we still have the BBC which is publicly funded and not funded by advertising, they show a lot of repeats too sometimes, but sometimes they do produce the kid of great programmes that you know on a commercial channel would just not happen like "Blue Planet" which is an example of what I love about the BBC.... but I'm glad that we still have television that is not playing to the largest crowd and is independent of any other influences, if someone owns a company they will decide what goes on. So it must really gawl people like the Murdochs' that there is some form of popular media broadcasting that they just can't buy. For years they've railed against it, when BBC launched the iPlayer allowing people to watch TV online in the UK, they said that it was anti competative, how can it be anti competative, OK all channels have to compete for viewers, but the independent TV channels don't have to compete with the BBC for advertising.